Modern patient health care routinely requires the preparation of very large numbers of parenteral solutions for intravenous or intramuscular administration to patients. Such parenteral solutions include those formulated for nutritional purposes, as well as drug-containing admixtures for therapeutic purposes.
In view of the large number of such admixtures which must be prepared on a routine basis, efficient and accurate preparation of such solutions is highly desirable. In the past, preparation of such solutions has typically been effected manually by the pharmacist and assisting personnel in a health care facility. Specifically, an appropriate intravenous solution container, typically comprising a flexible patient bag, is selected, with the container typically being partially empty, or containing appropriate base nutritional solutions or diluents. The pharmacist or other personnel then calculates the amounts of various liquid components that need to be made to the solution container in accordance with the physician's order. These components are then measured by drawing them into syringes of the appropriate sizes, with the contents of the syringes then injected into the final solution container.
As will be appreciated, accurate preparation of parenteral solutions in this manner is time consuming, with the manual nature of the procedure raising the possibility of error in the preparation of the resultant admixtures. Additionally, the repeated needle-puncturing in additions of solutions to the admixture container increase the risk of contamination.
Accordingly, automatic systems for compounding parenteral admixtures are coming into increasingly widespread use. Such systems typically include arrangements for measuring and combining one or more selected source solutions in a suitable admixture container for subsequent patient administration. Such devices ordinarily include programmable controls as well as suitable monitoring devices to greatly facilitate efficient and accurate preparation of parenteral admixtures.
The present invention relates to an admixture compounding apparatus for use in association with an automated compounding system. In particular, the present apparatus, and method of use thereof, is specifically configured to avoid mixture of potentially incompatible source solutions, which in their relatively undiluted and concentrated state could undesirably form precipitates.